EU to pump €100m in grants into 1,000 digital start-ups around Europe

European Commission vice-president Neelie Kroes pictured in Dublin, Ireland, on 19 June 2013 at the launch of the Digital Masterplan for Dublin City

Calling tech start-ups around Europe! Neelie Kroes, European Commission vice-president, has announced that up to 1,000 European start-ups in the digital space are set to receive grants via a new €100m funding round from the European Commission’s Future Internet programme.

The goal of the funding, according to Kroes, who heads up Europe’s Digital Agenda, will be to help such start-ups and SMEs develop apps and other digital services in areas such as transport, health, smart manufacturing, energy and media.

The Commission announced the new €100m funding yesterday.

"I promised action at Le Web in Paris last December and now I am delivering," said Kroes in a statement. “We need more innovation and a more digital economy in Europe and that starts with a better ecosystem for start-ups. We’re putting our money where our mouth is," she said.

The Future Internet scheme is known as a Public-Private-Partnership (PPP). The €100m funding announcement is the third and final segment of the €500m partnership that launched in 2011. The goal of the overall programme is to help businesses and governments capitalise on the mobile internet and data revolution and to spur innovation and jobs in Europe’s digital industries.

Shaping Europe’s digital economy

Just last month, Kroes was in Dublin for the European Digital Agenda Assembly. At the time she gave a media briefing in which she praised the digital innovations that are happening around the continent at the moment, especially from younger people.

Kroes also has a team of young digital advisers from around Europe who provide her with insights on how digital can impact sectors, ranging from medicine to education and commerce, and potentially create jobs.

A plethora of initiatives has spawned in recent times to help bring people into the digital age, especially Europe’s future generation. Think initiatives such as Women 2020, the CoderDojo coding club movement for kids, plus campaigns such as Siliconrepublic.com’s Women Invent Tomorrow to put the emphasis on women who are innovating around the science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) areas.

Then you have the start-up explosion happening in cities from Dublin to Berlin where people are pooling their ideas to come together, form new digital ventures, and disrupt sectors such as energy, health, music and retail.

New internet applications and services

Yesterday, the Commission said that this €100m in grants will aim to help develop new internet applications and services for a wide range of areas.

The services and apps will be built around the technologies developed in the PPP programme.